From behind bars to bouquets

PAULA Pryke is no Gordon Ramsay. Flowers are, after all, more peaceful to be around than boiling pans and sharp knives.

So even when the team of ex-cons she trained to become florists for a new Channel 4 show were at their most difficult - unable to concentrate, fighting like cats and dogs - she kept her cool.

They reminded her of the days before she fell in love with the subtle charms of peonies and sweet peas, when she worked as a teacher in a Romford comprehensive. 'They couldn't sit still,' she says of the group.

'Their attention span was quite limited. But they knew an awful lot about credit card fraud.î

Pryke gave the group eight days' training at her base in Islington, north London, followed by some hands-on work experience. Now they are, in theory at least, on their own - running a shop called A New Leaf in the nearby Caledonian Road. (Channel 4 provided start-up funds, but the business is owned and run by its staff; if they fail to turn a profit, they will lose their livelihood.)

'It's close by,î she says. 'So I'm still in almost daily contact with them. It's me they call when they've got a bridal bouquet to make at 5.30pm on a Friday and they're not quite sure how to do it.

Pryke heard about the project a year ago. 'It didn't seem a crazy idea. I remembered buying my own flowers from Buster Edwards [the train robber who famously had a stall outside Waterloo Station] when I was at Southwark College. The wonderful thing about flowers is that they work on so many levels. At Covent Garden, you'll find everyone from a titled flower arranger to the barrow boy.'

Her six students were: Cliff, 40, who has a conviction for grievous bodily harm; Judith, 40, who served two years for cocaine smuggling; Greg, 23, a former burglar; Rob, 36, who has convictions for firearms offences; Kim, 46, jailed for intent to supply cannabis; and Terence, 23, also convicted of drug charges.

They were recruited for the series One Last Job, to be screened in the autumn, through adverts in cafes, launderettes and snooker halls. But the project was fraught. Of the six, two dropped out, and two have been bought out of the business by the remaining pair, Judith and Cliff.

'I didn't know what any of them had done wrong,î says Pryke. 'I didn't want to.'

So how did they take to the business? 'There were no naturals, but there was one guy where I saw a glimmer of hope. What amazed me was that some people wanted to be on TV, yet still couldn't always be bothered to turn up.

'But six people can't really make a living from one shop anyway, so it was obvious that it would whittle down to those who really wanted it.'

Is A New Leaf the kind of place she'd buy a bunch of flowers? 'It's getting there.'

Pryke, who grew up on a Suffolk poultry farm, lives with her architect husband Peter Romaniuk in an amazing converted spray-painting garage between Islington and King's Cross. The place is so sleek, you could be forgiven for thinking that her business is turning over millions of pounds a year. But, in spite of her hip client list, books and concessions at the Conran Shop and Liberty, she insists this is far from the case.

'I still feel it's touch and go,' she says. 'I feel that more now than I did 10 years ago [she opened her first shop in 1987]. The problem is that, as a nation of gardeners, people expect flowers to be inexpensive. As the group at A New Leaf discovered, from a £50 bouquet, you'd be lucky to make £10 profit. It's very labour-intensive, and there's a lot of waste.

'But also I'm in a delivery business and I feel hunted by parking wardens.' And then, of course, there is Central London's congestion charge. Pryke recently closed her shop in Penton Street, N1; after the charge was introduced, her profits there fell by 20%.

She buys half a million pounds' worth of flowers a year and, yes, trends do come and go. 'The hot flowers are all romantic: sweet peas, peonies, garden roses, stocks. Orchids are definitely waning.'

Do her famous clients require her to sign confidentiality agreements? 'No. The only time we've had a problem was when Julia Roberts sent flowers to Kate Winslet when her marriage was ending. A photograph of our van was on the front pages. But being a florist is a great job for a nosy person.'